Readers may notice that The Observer was the only campus paper who declined to endorse a candidate in the recent UGBC elections. While we congratulate Micaela Mabida and Patrick Raab on their victory and wish them the best of luck, we found that each candidate team did not possess qualities we look for.

Both the Mabida-Raab and Witmer-Dower teams showed their ability to manage UGBC and carry out its most basic functions. However, in an effort to garner ALC support, both supported troubling proposals that serve this special interest group instead of the student body. Of particular concern was the support for a mandatory freshman seminar on race, class, and gender. Such a program, which has already been implemented at universities nationwide, will likely be one-sided and will only seek to indoctrinate rather than educate students. The fact that both candidates supported this program eliminated the possibility of an Observer endorsement.

If the two finalists did not meet our standards, Munden and Rojas were that much more at odds with our philosophy. Their platform was hyper-partisan and reminiscent of the time when the Global Justice Project ran two candidates for the UGBC in 2005. The UGBC should only concern itself with the student body’s concerns; the unionized workers pay union dues to cover their own representation. Also, Munden and Rojas clearly could not gauge the student body’s mood. Despite their claims that the winning team lacked the necessary enthusiasm to unite the student body, Munden and Rojas only garnered 379 votes, accounting for less than four percent of the student body.

Our dreams of a completely non-partisan UGBC may never be fulfilled. However, candidates who receive our endorsement should at the very least look to the entire student body, not a small but vociferous contingent.